Marathon

This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select. This game has revisional differences.

Before there was Halo, Bungie made Marathon. It's one of the best (and most popular) Macintosh-exclusive games of the '90's that is not an arcade game clone. It even comes complete with a mouse-looking feature.

Contents

Level Select

Holding the Command and Option keys together while clicking on the "Begin New Game" button brings up a prompt to go to any level in the game. This also works for doing either a single-player or a network game.

Script Debug

DITL ID 139 contains a script debug to see all of the game's scripts. It's unknown how it can be activated, but it is present in both of the sequels.

Unused Graphic

This was intended to be the Marathon, but later games portray the ship as more like a grey egg. Here, the ship looks more like half an asteroid, which makes sense because the Marathon was built out of Deimos in the story. Needless to say, the player never sees it throughout the game.

Unused Text

General

Under STR #128, line number 10 has this string:

"This beta copy of Marathon has expired and is
no longer functional. Call Bungie at
(312) 563-2000 ext. 21 for more information."

According to the developer message just below, these are cheeky placeholder strings to fill in space created by the removal of a cut weapon.

The first terminal in "Try Again" should display this as part of its message, according to the resource fork:

(*&)&
~~~~~~&>%*{%rhpe~~jy658[69l[il[70l
-0oli77765~~uI%OI&%

However, this is what's actually displayed in-game:

(*&)&
~~~~~~&>%*{The colony has been wiped out. Phhht! Just like
that.hpe~~jy658[69l[il[70l
-0oli77765~~uI%OI&%

The string "The colony has been wiped out. Phhht! Just like that." is found in the game's code at resource 9, offset 1798 and is not displayed anywhere else in the game. The "%r" in the resource fork is mistakenly interpreted to be this string.

Undisplayed Dialogue

This is the final location.
Good luck.
***END MESSAGE***

The last part of the first terminal message in "Defend THIS!" The game can only handle up to eight pages per terminal, and this message would have been the eighth page of nine.

***MESSAGE FROM LEELA***
You have not retrieved the Fusion Gun. Return when you have
done so.
***END OF MESSAGE***

From the second terminal in "Cool Fusion." Apparently, the player would have been told if he/she didn't have the fusion gun. Instead, the terminal always allows the player to proceed.

Disabled Cheat Codes

At 4CA04, there are some cheat codes that were used during development that were disabled. These would have been entered by holding Control while entering one of the following upper-cased.

Developer Messages

As an easter egg of sorts for those using ResEdit or a similar resource editing tool, one of the developers inserted a message in the program itself under the TEXT resource fork:

Hey you, looking through my resource fork:
Because of time constraints, many of the interesting parts
of Marathon (i.e., the texts, the chapter screens, etc.) were
not encrypted like I've done in the past with Minotaur or
Pathways. This also makes globalization easier.
So when you read all the computer terminals from ResEdit
or find out what the final screen looks like, don't post
on comp.sys.mac.games or AOL or whereever you call home
on the information toll-road and ruin things for everyone
else. Go find it in the game, and tell people how to get
themselves there.
I'd also like to say that Greg and I have only slept for 15
hours in the last seven days. <grin>
I hope you guys are already working on level editors and
figuring out the format of the "Physics Model" file!
Competent programmers serious about doing any sort
of add-ons to Marathon should e-mail me on the internet
at jon3@quads.uchicago.edu for help and (maybe) header
files.
Thanks,
Jason (Dec. 18, 1994 1:57am.)
PS. In case you were wondering, you can't ever find the
pirated copy of Copland in Marathon. That item used to be
a weapon that we took out late in development (the copy of
Windows NT was it's ammunition) but that will find it's
way into the Network Upgrade for Marathon.

A second message was added to the Trilogy version under the same fork:

You again?
Two and a half years after the wild coding Blitzkrieg that
created Marathon, I'm back here removing the serial
number protection for the trilogy release. Without source.
I had this really dumb idea back then that I'd have the
game wait until April 1st 1995 before enabling a second
layer of serial number verification.
Ha. After hacking out three dialogs from each of the 68k
and PowerPC versions, with only MacsBug to light the way,
I'm sort of glad I never got time to do that.
Now Myth is the order of the day, and we're aiming for a
early fall release. The coming summer won't turn into
the unairconditioned blur of boiling late nights ordering
pizza and drinking powdered Gatorate to stay hydrated
that 1995 was, but I imagine we'll keep busy somehow.
I have this feeling it's going to be snowing again when I
have free time again.
So. No serial numbers. It's always bothered me that
Marathon's public lifetime would be over when the last
registration card or serial number list got lost. Hopefully
this is the version that I'll be playing in fifty years
under emulation on some fuckfast portable the thickness
of a sheet of paper that walks my dog, dresses me every
morning and grinds up my food because I don't have any
teeth left. And hopefully it won't be running Windows.
Later,
Jason (March 17, 1997 4:39pm)

Map Messages

Several levels contain hidden messages in the map geometry that cannot be seen without using a level editor. Some levels have multiple hidden messages. The original capitalization of the text has been preserved.

Level

Message

Never Burn Money

JJARRO WERE AT TAU CETI

The Rose

NEVER STOP FIRING

The Rose

poenas dare

G4 Sunbathing

YOU MUST LOVE M-THON IT KICKS

Bob-B-Q

BOB-JAM? APPLY GRENADES LIBERALLY!!

Shake Before Using...

I RULE

Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!

CUPIDITAS PRAEMIUM SUUM EST.

Habe Quiddam

ANOTHER ALL-NIGHTER

Neither High nor Low

GK IS THE #1 VID At BUNGIE

Neither High nor Low

JAY COULDN'T SLIP ON A BANANA

No Artificial Colors

TUNCER / GK

No Artificial Colors

CARNAGE RULES

Eupfhoria

MAGNESIUM FLARES ARE KEWL!

Ain't Got Time Phor This...

DCROMLEY

Ingue Ferroque

JAy rokz greg

Revision Differences

The Trilogy version adds the ability to see the FPS by pressing the ? / and Shift keys. It also removes the serial number protection from the game.